The Only Truth in this Cold World
by Azrael27
Summary: Harry knows more then he should. Daphne just wants to be warm. Perhaps they'll be able to carve a place out in an uncaring world.
1. Chapter 1

**AN :** Welcome to my first story, a collaborative fiction between myself and Noodlehammer. I hope you enjoy it. As expected we don't own Harry Potter.

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Daphne pulled on the hem of the white linen shift that her father had handed her and told her to put on. It was so thin that it almost felt like she was wearing nothing at all, but she didn't complain. Father didn't like it when she complained.

She saw his eyes narrow at her fidgeting and immediately straightened.

He kept staring at her for a few seconds longer and then nodded to himself. "Follow me."

Daphne obeyed silently, doing her best to keep an impassive countenance and not let on to how frightened she was. What was going on?

They met with a tearful Mother in another room, which didn't help settle her fears. She'd long since learned that while Mother loved her, she could not be relied on for protection. She was weak.

Even more worrying was that Astoria was with her, covered only in a white linen shift just like the one she was wearing. She still didn't dare ask.

"Daphne!" Little Tori exclaimed happily and bounded forward. She seized one of Daphne's hands in her own and smiled an adorable gap-toothed grin at her big sister.

Daphne felt a rare warmth in her heart, the kind that she only experienced with her sister, but it was quickly replaced with fear. Why was Tori here and dressed the same as her? Father had never shown much interest in her, much to Daphne's relief.

"Where are we going?" She finally dared ask out of concern for Tori. Her voice remained firm and steady despite her emotions. Father hated it when she acted meek.

"Outside." He replied in a clipped tone that warned her away from any more questions.

Daphne tightened her hold on Astoria's hand and hoped that Father wouldn't do anything to Tori. She was already far too weak from the Greengrass family curse for Daphne's taste. Even this small walk had her breathing hard and sweating.

Not that she was doing well herself. Father had made it clear years ago that he'd wanted a son and was disappointed to have received a daughter. No matter how hard she tried, he always seemed disappointed and some kind of punishment was swift to follow. The pain left quickly enough, but the weakness lingered for much longer. Some of it never left at all.

Daphne feared her father too much to complain, but her lessons with him had become a torturous exercise in trying to focus through her exhaustion. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd felt truly rested.

Daphne shivered as they passed through the back entrance and the cold December air seeped through the thin linen shift.

"Mummy, I'm cold." Astoria complained tiredly.

"You'll be warm again soon, sweetheart." Mother said with a trembling voice and picked Astoria up.

Daphne saw her father frown and kept her jaw clenched tightly to keep her teeth from chattering.

They soon reached two stone slabs sitting on a wider stone platform and she started getting a really bad feeling about this.

"What's going on?" She asked, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.

"Drink this." Father ordered and thrust some kind of dark red potion at her. It didn't look pleasant.

"What does it do?" She asked hesitantly.

"Just drink it." Father snapped impatiently.

Daphne flinched at his obvious displeasure and reluctantly drank the potion. It tasted vaguely like blood.

Almost immediately, her mind started swimming. Everything felt like it was underwater, slow and distorted.

 _Kick off your slippers and lie down on the altar_. A voice said. It might have belonged to Father or it could have just been her imagination, Daphne couldn't tell, but she did as the voice said anyway.

The stone was very cold, but it somehow didn't matter. She gazed blankly up at the dark sky illuminated ***by a full moon peeking out from beneath the clouds and tracked the falling snowflakes that seemed oddly clear to her sight. The way they moved in the moonlight was captivating and her attention latched on with obsessive focus.

Two voices started chanting and the sound echoed over and over in her skull until it was an impenetrable wall of noise.

It felt like it went on forever, but the falling snowflakes seemed to be barely moving inside the beams of moonlight. The cold seeped into her, from the stone under her, the cold air all around her, but somehow the brief sting of cold from a particular snowflake that landed on her lips felt like the most important.

An unusual disembodied sensation followed, as if the shining moon that she was staring at was a giant mirror through which she could see herself. Daphne somehow knew that her skin had started losing its peach complexion until it became like marble and her lips turned a faint blue, as if they were frostbitten.

There was a sudden disharmony in the chanting voices that created a jarring discordance in the strangely ordered cacophony inside her skull. The first voice broke off from the chant and said something that conveyed alarm and then the second lashed at the first angrily. The voices continued their chanting then, but the discordance remained.

Her hair started changing next, its rich dark brown color lightening as if the pale moonlight was being absorbed into it.

An unexpected surge of strength rushed into her then, making Daphne gasp at the sensation. It was a magical strength, this she understood instinctively, even as her icy blue eyes began to glow.

With the power came a flood of comforting warmth that Daphne had always associated with her beloved little sister. Realization came a moment later, it _was_ Astoria's strength that she was feeling being drawn into her, strength that she didn't have to spare.

The panic was strong enough to break through the mind-altering fog of the potion and she surged into an upright position, desperately looking around for Tori.

She found her on the neighbouring ritual altar, still as the stone beneath her and looking completely shriveled. The horror of the sight poured into the muddled soup of her consciousness like a tidal wave as she stared and attempted to comprehend the sight in vain.

A sob caught her attention and she turned her eyes forward. Mother and Father were standing there. Mother was sobbing while Father looked on stoically.

The horror turned to an ice-cold rage. Her sister was dead and they had done it. The only warm person in her life was dead, killed by a useless weakling and a cruel monster that demanded so much and gave so little.

With Astoria's power within and the shining moon above, there was no doubt about what she had to do next. The temperature plummeted as spears of glittering ice burst from the ground to impale her parents.

Daphne turned away from them and looked back at her sister. No, that withered husk wasn't her sister. Astoria was inside her now.

Still influenced by the mind-altering potion, Daphne started walking away without a second thought or backwards glance. She had to take Astoria to a better place. Where a better place was she didn't know, but the moon was bright and beautiful, so she walked towards it.

XXXXX

Harry Potter was unusually clever for a boy of eight, possessed of an emotional maturity and instinctive understanding of certain things that developed only through life experience, something that no child his age should have, no matter how gifted.

He knew, for example, that his relatives hated him with an irrational sort of hate that would not fade no matter how much he tried to appease them.

Harry hated his relatives just as much, if not more, than they hated him. He hated them with a fury that a child that young shouldn't be able to muster. Something about being under their thumb, being forced to cook for them and clean after them and take their abuse, roused something wrathful and vicious in him.

But he didn't really have a way to act on those feelings. He might be a wizard – and Harry knew that he was one with an inexplicable bone-deep certainty – but his magic wasn't yet strong enough to really do more than invite further beatings from Vernon.

Not directly at least, but there were plenty of indirect ways to use magic. Any normal child in his position would be too cowed from knowing only abuse in their short life to have the courage to act, but Harry was far from normal. The rage boiling inside him demanded a response and he was more than happy to give one.

Petunia – Harry refused to consider her family and never referred to her as his aunt, even in his mind – had recently brought home a big, fat turkey. The resident walrus and baby whale of Privet Drive would no doubt gleefully taunt him with how good it was while he was starving in his cupboard, just like last year.

 _We'll see who has the last laugh._ Harry thought spitefully as he carefully carried the turkey out of the freezer and placed it on the table. The damn thing was heavy and he was a scrawny eight-year-old.

That task accomplished, he started working on his objective – cursing the turkey with his magic.

Harry had the vague notion that he was missing something important for this, a tool of some sort perhaps, but he pressed on regardless. He had learned that magic happened when he was very scared, desperate or angry and the results could be unpredictable, now he tried to make it happen on purpose by focusing all the hatred he felt for his relatives on the turkey.

Time passed by without his notice as recalled every wrong done to him by either Vernon, Petunia or Dudley and envisioning the dead poultry as the vessel of his revenge. He wasn't sure if it had worked, but Harry thought that he could feel his hatred sinking into the dead flesh.

That was when things started going wrong.

"What do you think you're doing, you little freak?!" Petunia's grating screech of a voice snapped him out of his near-trance.

Harry jerked as if he'd been poked by a cattle prod and paled as he caught sight of Petunia's furious expression and heard Vernon's stomping footsteps coming downstairs.

The inevitable beating frightened him, but a cold satisfaction still burned in his chest at the knowledge that he had done what he'd set out to do.

XXXXX

Locked in the trunk of Vernon's car, Harry knew that something very bad was in store for him.

The fat walrus had only smacked him about the head a few times while yelling himself hoarse before suddenly going very still. Before he could start getting hopeful that Vernon had calmed down, he had been grabbed by the neck, marched towards the car and locked into the trunk.

He'd been able to hear Petunia and Dudley's indistinct voices as they probably questioned Vernon on what he was doing, but the fattest of the Dursleys didn't seem interested in replying. A few minutes later, he heard the car doors being opened and closed and then they started moving.

That had been quite some time ago, more than an hour for sure. Maybe two hours. It was hard to tell.

Finally, the trunk was opened and Harry found himself being roughly hauled out by Vernon's meaty hands.

"Where are we?" Harry asked defiantly. It was dark already and he didn't recognize the place. It took him a moment to identify the sound in the background as the ocean.

"Shut up, boy!" Vernon snarled and pulled him ahead even more roughly.

A minute later, Harry realized that they were on a secluded cliff overlooking the ocean.

"You've been nothing but trouble for us your entire life, you little freak." Vernon started ranting. "We took you in after your freak parents got themselves killed, fed you, clothed you and how do you repay us? By trying to ruin our Christmas dinner! Enough is enough, boy. If I dumped you somewhere, those other freaks would probably just dump you right back on us like they did the first time, but let's see them fish you out of the ocean!"

Harry screamed in terror as he was pushed off the cliff and flailed for something to save him.

He didn't notice himself being pulled towards the cliff face, but he did notice that it was in reach. Too terrified to consider what would happen to his hands if he tried to grab on to anything while falling, he reached for it.

The rock ripped his hands up, of course it did, and then it ripped up his feet when he used them to try slowing himself, but it didn't do so nearly as badly as it should have.

Harry breathed rapidly as he clung to the stone. It was cold, he had nothing to wear except Dudley's threadbare, oversized castoffs, his hands and feet were bleeding, but he was alive. That was the important part.

Once he calmed down a bit, he took a look towards the destination that Vernon had intended for him and swallowed fearfully at the rocks below. That would have killed him for certain.

With nothing else to do, he started climbing, grabbing for handholds and pushing himself up with his comparatively less damaged feet.

Harry quickly became aware that doing this felt...oddly familiar. Obviously he had never climbed a cliff before, yet he was certain that he had. It was confusing.

It even became easier to do, as something just clicked in his mind and the magic that he had been using to help him stick to the rocks shifted away from being inspired by fear of death and became something that he just knew how to do.

It took him about ten minutes to slowly and painfully make his way back to the top and the first thing he saw was a pair of snow-white feet.

XXXXX

Daphne had been walking all night, but she didn't feel her strength diminish or her purpose waver. The moon filled her with its light and the potion distorted her thinking in a way that removed all doubt from her mind.

The moon was starting to sink beneath the horizon when she saw it. One of those muggle car things drove near the cliff she had been heading for. A very fat man stomped out and pulled a boy from the trunk.

The boy said something, defiance covering fear. His magic was strong and full of life.

The fat man snarled something back, hateful and bitter. The sound rippled out from him in dark waves, clashing against the boy's magic.

Daphne watched as the fat muggle – and it had to be a muggle, because the sounds he made lacked substance – pushed the boy off the cliff.

She felt a flicker of sadness at seeing the boy die, but it didn't matter. She had to take Astoria to a better place.

The muggle drove off, never seeing Daphne as she made her way to the very same cliff that he'd thrown the boy from.

It was as far as she could go. The moon was out of reach and about to sink below the horizon. It didn't feel like the place where she was supposed to take her sister, but there was nowhere else to go.

Her feet ached. It hadn't mattered before, but it was starting to. Daphne felt tears sting her eyes as the absolute clarity of purpose the potion had given her started fading. She tried to cling to the feeling, instinctively knowing that she did not want to face what had happened and what she'd done.

She was distracted from the increasingly hopeless battle against her returning lucidity when the boy she'd thought was dead suddenly pulled himself over the edge of the cliff.

His hands were bleeding quite badly and he looked exhausted, so she helped pull him up on solid ground.

"Thanks." He panted, looking at her with grateful green eyes.

Daphne didn't reply. Her eyes were fixed on his forehead, on the lightning bolt scar. Every witch and wizard in Britain knew that scar. This was Harry Potter.

The potion still hadn't quite faded, so she didn't stop to wonder why he was here or freeze in shock, she just jumped to a series of conclusions based on what she knew. Harry Potter was a hero, Astoria had loved hearing stories about him. He could help her.

"Please help." She whispered, finding it incredibly difficult to actually articulate her thoughts. It was all clear in her head but it felt as if language was wholly inadequate as a means of expression.

"What?" He asked in confusion.

Daphne felt desperation creeping up on her. The shadows in her mind were growing longer, threatening to snatch away the clarity that had carried her this far. Harry Potter was a hero, he would help if she could just make him understand what she needed.

"Please. _Help_." She tried again, but only managed to convey her desperation.

"Help you with what?" He asked. He sounded confused, tired and irritated.

Words weren't working, she had to make him _see_.

Daphne grabbed his face with her hands, stared deep into his eyes and pushed everything towards him.

XXXXX

Harry Potter was very, very confused. This ghostlike girl that had seemingly been waiting for him on the top of the cliff wanted his help with something, but she didn't seem to know how to tell him what it was.

Not that he was in any shape to help her with anything. He was hurt, cold and stranded in an unknown location of nowhere in the dead of winter. Helping others was not on the list of things he needed to do right now.

Then she grabbed his face with ice-cold hands that were far too strong and gave him the most unnerving stare he'd ever received. The glowing blue eyes made him freeze like a deer staring at an incoming car and then the world tilted sideways.

He was overwhelmed by a tide of alien...there wasn't even a word for it. It had a little similarity to the strange feelings of knowing that he'd been having his entire life, but far more powerful. That was like remembering impressions from a hazy dream that was always out of reach, this was like being trapped in one that you knew wasn't real but couldn't escape.

It made no sense to Harry. Such a thing could only be experienced subjectively and his frame of reference was all wrong, but one set of impressions came through clearly. The yearning for home, safety, warmth.

Unfortunately, those weren't things he could help...Daphne? Or was it Astoria?...with. He'd never experienced them himself.

That thought suddenly felt untrue to Harry. He'd had a home once, where he had been safe and loved. That was something they both needed right now, so he focused all of his being on going to that place.

The two children vanished in an accidental Apparition.

XXXXX


	2. Chapter 2

A/N Again, I own nothing. As previously stated this is all thanks to Noodlehammer.

XXXXX

Albus looked at the two Hogwarts acceptance letters gravely, leaning his chin on his steepled hands.

They were for Harry Potter and Daphne Greengrass, both adressed to the master bedroom of the Potter Cottage in Godric's Hollow.

Both had disappeared around Christmas three years ago and the last thing Albus had expected was to find out that they had been at the ruined Potter home all this time, together. How had they even gotten there?

Ms. Greengrass' disappearance had been the first to be noticed, what with the pulse of dark magic that had Ministry Aurors swarming all over Greengrass Manor. That had been a gristly scene, the youngest daughter left a shriveled husk, the parents impaled on shards of ice and the older daughter gone without a trace. A ritual had clearly been attempted and not gone as planned, but there was nobody to question. Search parties had been sent out but Daphne Greengrass had never been found.

The first that Albus had become aware of Harry Potter's disappearance was when Arabella Figg contacted him the day after Christmas with news that the Dursleys were dead, seemingly of severe food poisoning.

Albus had done his own investigating and discovered, much to his perturbation, that their Christmas turkey fairly reeked of dark magic. It had been no simple case of food poisoning. But what had happened to Harry Potter?

He had kept the disappearance of the Boy-Who-Lived quiet, not wanting to start a panic, but finding him had proven impossible.

Albus' last hope had been the Hogwarts Book of Students. The spells that had gone into its creation were lost to them, but it was known that the book found and automatically addressed letters to every magical child in the British Isles. His hope had been vindicated, but it brought up so many more questions.

These were two letters that he needed to deliver himself.

XXXXX

Albus knocked on the door of the ruined home and waited patiently, trying to keep the sorrow and nostalgia this place inspired at bay. So much had been lost because of one man's hatred and his own mistakes.

The door opened and Albus saw Harry Potter for the first time since he was a baby. The boy still had the same brilliant green eyes, but now they were filled with wariness and suspicion, almost hostility. His body language, too, spoke of tension. More tellingly, he was wearing some of his father's clothes, which were obviously far too big for him and hung off his frame, yet he didn't seem to notice. A sure sign that wearing oversized clothing had become normal to him. *His hair was also grown long, reaching down to his shoulders, but it appeared to be so from neglect more than choice of style.

"Good afternoon." Albus greeted jovially, hoping to put the boy at ease. "My name is Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Harry didn't look surprised or confused. In fact, he looked even more on edge, as if he was being forced into parley with an enemy.

"Hello." He said, the single word conveying volumes of distrust.

"I have a letter for you and Ms. Greengrass." Albus continued, keeping his tone friendly and pretending not to notice how obviously unwelcome he was. "May I come in?"

The mention of his companion got Harry's hackles up even further, but he nodded anyway and stood aside to allow Albus entry.

The old headmaster followed behind the boy and quietly took in the house. It looked much the same as it had when he had been here last, but there were yet more signs of long-term habitation.

He saw the young witch in question when they arrived in the living room and it took quite a bit of self-control on Albus' part to not react to her appearance. Like Harry, she was wearing an adult's clothes, Lily's no doubt, but that wasn't the shocking part.

Hair and skin as white as snow and blue eyes as cold as a glacier, she didn't look altogether human anymore. Obviously the consequences of whatever dark ritual the now long-deceased elder Greengrasses had attempted. Albus had seen such things before, in Tom Riddle most notably. Unfortunately that was all he could tell. The Dark Arts were as varied as their practicioners and no two situations were exactly the same.

"He's here." Harry said to Daphne and sat down next to her on the couch.

Albus took note of how she immediately scooted closer so that she her entire side was pressed up against him and how Harry briefly stiffened in response, as if someone had pressed an ice cube to his bare skin.

"You were expecting me?" He asked, grateful for the opening.

"Daphne said that someone from Hogwarts would come, but we weren't expecting the headmaster himself." The boy answered, his voice still carrying a wary and suspicious undertone.

Albus heard the implied question and decided to give an answer that would hopefully put them at ease while also moving him towards some answers. "Normally I would not, but when two missing children turn out to be living in a supposedly abandoned home...suffice to say, I thought that normal procedure wouldn't do."

The children didn't reply, but their postures screamed of tension. They would clam up if he pushed for more information right now, so he changed tacts.

"As I said, I have your Hogwarts letters here." He said, taking the letters in question out of his robes. "Your parents enrolled you when you were born."

Now that did produce an interesting reaction. Daphne stiffened and her eyes narrowed slightly with suppressed anger. Curious, and ominous.

Harry took the letters and Albus noted the faint scars on his palms. His curiosity grew even further, but he didn't ask.

"I can have a professor escort you to Diagon Alley to get your supplies." He offered when neither of them spoke up after reading through the letters.

"That would be fine." Harry said tersely and Albus breathed an internal sigh of relief. If they had refused to attend Hogwarts things could have become...problematic. He would have had to force them and that would make it nearly impossible to gain Harry's trust in the future.

He left soon after that, keeping his many questions to himself for now. They had been too on edge and would have clammed up if he asked. With the mysterious deaths of the Dursleys and the unknown relationship Harry had with much changed Ms. Greengrass, he had to step lightly. Surface Legilimency had revealed nothing of import and a deeper look would have been detected.

Obviously, two children couldn't be left to continue living alone in a half-ruined house. They had only survived this long because the place had been stocked with years worth of food in the event that the Potters would need to completely drop out of contact with the outside. The Ministry would never allow this situation to continue, but their ham-fisted approach would only cause harm.

Albus would prefer to get Harry and Daphne to Hogwarts before the Ministry got involved. They would close down the Potter home, leaving the children essentially homeless, whereupon he could offer to let them stay at the castle over the summers as well. Then he would get his answers.

Now who should he send to escort them on their trip to Diagon Alley? He had originally been intending for Hagrid to do it, what with his bias towards Gryffindor and Albus himself. He would have been perfect to nudge Harry in the right direction, but alas, with the suspicion and wariness that Harry had shown already, the half-giant would more than likely have the opposite effect.

That gave him another idea...

XXXXX

"Something about that man puts me on edge." Harry said once they were alone again.

"My parents didn't like him either." Daphne replied quietly, scooting closer so that she was nearly sitting in his lap.

Despite the discomfort of having what felt like a living block of ice pressing into him, Harry didn't move away. It had become normal for them to be like this.

Daphne had been a hysterical mess when they arrived here three years ago, the loss of her sister and the killing of her parents hitting her all at once when the potion wore off. The only thing he had been able to do was hold her, which led to the discovery that the constant cold she felt could be allayed through contact.

She had eventually recovered, but she always sought out contact with him to keep the cold at bay.

They stayed silent for a few minutes, another common occurence. After spending three years in this house with nothing much to do, there was little left to talk about.

"They won't let us stay here." Daphne said.

"I know." Harry nodded. "We're starting to run out of food anyway."

The house may have been stocked with a lot of food and the Dursleys forcing him to cook for them had taught him the skills that let them survive, but he had already needed to make a few midnight thieving runs in the local store with the help of his rudimentary understanding of magic to supplement what they had.

Neither one of them had been eager to contact any adults, so they had hidden in the ruined Potter home and kept their heads down, but they had known that this day was coming. As eager as both were to learn more magic, they were also nervous about getting back out there.

XXXXX

Severus was in a foul mood as he stalked up to the place where the Potters had died. He didn't want to be here, but Albus had been his usual persuasive self.

So he knocked on the door with more force than strictly necessary and glared down at the spawn of James Potter when he opened the door. He barely noticed the ghostly pale girl next to him.

"Hello." The brat greeted, wariness simmering in those painfully familiar eyes.

"Are you prepared to go?" Severus asked brusquely, not bothering with greetings or introductions.

"We have no clothes that fit us, Professor." Greengrass said quietly, but her voice didn't waver. "Could you transfigure them into something more appropriate?"

Severus held back a sneer of irritation and did as the girl asked, waving his wand over them and changing the adult-sized clothes in to something that actually fit. It didn't escape his notice how they tensed when his wand was pointed at them.

"Are you read to go now?" He asked impatiently. There was a reason why he wasn't one of the teachers that introduced muggleborns to the wizarding world.

Instead of replying, Greengrass went towards a coathanger and pulled off a heavy winter cloak before draping it over her shoulders, even covering her head with the fur-lined hood.

That did make Severus raise an eyebrow. It was the height of summer.

"Now we're ready." She said.

Severus held out a length of rope. "Portkey."

The two children took it wordlessly and they were whisked away.

XXXXX

Daphne didn't like this Hogwarts professor much. He reminded her too much of her father with his irritable attitude and impatience. She and Harry had to almost run to keep up with his long strides.

Her hood flew back and she quickly tugged it back down. Direct sunlight made her skin prickle unpleasantly, which would have been acceptable if it did anything to warm her up, but it didn't. Harry's magic was the only thing that had ever done anything to help against the cold inside her, ever since that night.

Daphne took a deep breath, pushing away the memories. This wasn't the time to be thinking about that.

She saw that they were approaching a large building guarded by small non-human creatures.

This must be Gringotts and the goblins. She guessed. Father had mentioned them several times, in unfavorable terms.

There was a plaque at the entrance, but they had no time to read it due to the professor's quick pace.

"Here's your key, Potter." He almost spat, drawing a golden key from his robes and shoving it roughly into Harry's hands. "Show it to the teller and ask him to take you down to your vault."

Daphne glared at the man, angered by the way he was treating Harry. He had no cause for his attitude that she could see. They had never even met!

"Why did you have my key?" Harry asked suspiciously.

The professor's upper lip peeled away from his teeth in an ugly sneer. "It was left in Dumbledore's keeping as your magical guardian. Try not to be a dunderhead and lose it."

"What about my key?" Daphne asked quietly, staring at the greasy-haired professor.

"I don't know, ask the teller." Was his curt response.

Not wanting to provoked the ill-tempered man any more, she resolved to do just that.

Fortunately, the lines were short and it was soon their turn. Harry nodded at her to indicate that she should go first, so she stepped up to the counter to face the bored looking goblin.

"Name and key?" The goblin prompted in a tone as bored as his expression.

"Daphne Greengrass and I don't know where my key is."

The goblin abruptly no longer looked bored and stared at her keenly.

"The Ministry of Magic declared the Greengrass family extinct three years ago and seized their vault as punishment for using illegal dark magic."

Daphne's eyes widened in shock. "But I'm alive."

"You'll have to take that up with the Ministry." The goblin retorted unsympathetically. "Next."

Harry stepped forward and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze before talking to the goblin teller.

Daphne was still trying to process that her family's money was all gone, apparently stolen by the Ministry of Magic. She hadn't liked her father and had little respect for her mother, but she had been counting on that money. It was already bad enough how much she relied on Harry, now she would need to do it even more.

XXXXX

The trip down to Harry's vault and then back up was done quickly and mostly in silence. Daphne was still stewing in her own thoughts and neither the still unintroduced professor or the goblin called Griphook were chatty types.

Not that Harry would have really felt comfortable holding a conversation with Daphne while anyone else was present anyway. After three years of being on their own, it was weird to have other people around.

That was made abundantly clear in their next stop; Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.

"Professor Snape!" The presumed Madam Malkin exclaimed as they walked in, apparently delighted for some reason that neither Harry nor Daphne could fathom. "What a surprise to see you escorting students around Diagon Alley."

"We were short-handed." The finally identified professor said curtly, obviously not in the mood for conversation.

Well, it was obvious to everyone except Madam Malkin apparently, because the squat witch kept on babbling at him obliviously.

Harry shared a look with Daphne, both of them wondering why anyone would even want to talk to the sour man.

"Why are you wearing that winter cloak, dear?" Malkin asked nosily, having turned her attention from Snape to Daphne. "Well, no matter. Take it off and hop on the stool so that we can get you measured."

Daphne visibly shrunk into the cloak, clearly unwilling to take it off. Her changed appearance hadn't mattered when it was just her and Harry, but being out in the open like this for the first time in three years...

"Come on now, I don't bite." Malkin said with a smile, reaching over to take the cloak herself.

Daphne skittered away nervously and Harry quickly stepped in between them.

"Do you have any robes that we can take off the rack?" He asked, almost glaring at the shop owner. They had been wearing oversized adult robes for years now, a perfect fit wasn't necessary.

"Potter, stop making a nuisance of yourself and get on the stool." Snape snarled.

"Potter?" Malkin repeated with wide eyes. "Harry Potter?"

Three years ago, when Vernon Dursley had been smacking him about the head prior to stuffing him in the trunk of his car, Harry's glasses had been knocked off. Ever since then, he had learned how to deal with the fact that the world around him was constantly blurry.

Harry thought that he could have been blind and still seen the shock on Malkin's face.

He shot the stupid professor an angry glare. Daphne had told him that he was well known in the magical world and for what, but she had obviously not known just how bad it was if his name got this reaction. The professor should have known better, though.

Predictably, Snape just sneered back at him. There was something about the greasy man's expressions and rudeness that really pissed him off.

"The robes?" He said tightly, trying to get this over with as soon as possible.

"Err, yes, of course!" Malkin stuttered at the reminder of her job. "I suppose you could just take a few Hogwarts robes off the racks, but they might not fight you properly!"

She sounded scandalized at the thought.

"It's fine." He asserted, Daphne's body language telling him quite clearly that she wanted to get out of here.

The robes they quickly picked out were indeed probably a little big, but not nearly as much as the ones left behind by his parents that they wre used to. These at least they would grow into soon enough.

XXXXX

The rest of the shopping trip was no less trying. Snape seemed to take delight in making things as difficult as possible at every turn, which left Harry struggling to keep hold of his temper. It was the same kind of simmering rage that had led him to cursing the Dursleys' Christmas turkey.

Ollivander's wand shop was to be their last stop and both Harry and Daphne were eager for more than one reason. They had wanted wands for years and it would mean they no longer had to put up with Snape.

The bell above the entrance jingled as they entered, but they were too busy looking at the boxes upon boxes of wands in the store. The air almost seemed to tingle with magic.

"Don't gawk like a gormless buffoon, Potter." Snape snarled.

Harry clenched his jaw in an attempt to control his anger. He was really starting to hate this greasy-haired bastard.

"Professor Snape." A soft voice said, causing both Harry and Dpahne to jump slightly. "How good to see you again. Acacia with dragon heartstring, thirteen and a quarter inches, a fine wand for the subtle wizard."

Harry almost snorted. Snape, subtle?

Ollivander's strange, pale eyes snapped over to him. "And Harry Potter. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. You have your mother's eyes. It seems like only yesterday-"

"Can be get on with this?" Snape asked impatiently.

Ollivander looked a little put off by that and Harry was none too pleased either. He had been looking forward to hearing something about his parents.

"Very well." The wand maker said.

What followed was a baffling series of measurements taken of them while Ollivander chattered on about his wands. Not only did the measurements seem completely pointless, but the tape measure was doing so on its own and old man wasn't even checking them, which made them both wonder if he was just doing it to distract them.

"Here you go, my dear, try this one." Ollivander said gently as he handed Daphne a wand. "Oak and dragon heartstring, nice and cooperative. Just give it a wave."

Daphne took it and immediately felt uncomfortable.

Ollivander snatched it away before she could even wave it as he'd told her to do. "No, definitely not."

He passed it on to Harry, who at least got to wave it before it was snatched away.

This went on for a good thirty minutes, with Ollivander becoming progressively happier with every failure and Snape becoming progressively unhappier. That last part had the side effect of making Harry and Daphne happy as well.

"Hmm, dragon heartstring and phoenix feather don't seem terribly fond of you, dear, yet you seem to have no affinity with woods that favor unicorn hair either." Ollivander muttered mostly to himself.

Daphne worried that no wand would accept her. She didn't want to be separated from Harry.

"Perhaps..." Ollivander went on muttering and shuffled into the back of his store without explanation, coming out with a wand of pale wood.

"Yew with unicorn hair, twelve and a half inches, a most unusual combination." He explained, giving her a look of sympathy. "A wand of life, death and rebirth, for one of gentle spirit who has endured difficult trials. It will be a devoted companion and fierce protector even in the darkest times."

Daphne took it hopefully and almost sighed with relief as her magic rose up within her and pulsed from the wand in a wash of cold that covered the area around her in a thin layer of hoarfrost.

Harry smiled at her and gave her other hand a squeeze before returning to his own attempts to be find a wand that suited him.

Their uplift in mood soon passed when he was matched with a wand of holly and phoenix feather, and Ollivander returned to unnervingly creepy by explaining that it was the brother wand to Voldemort's.

XXXXX

Snape had made no secret of the fact that he hated every second that he had to spend escorting them around Diagon Alley. Likewise, he made no secret of how relieved he was to be rid of them and simply threw around portkey at them.

"I hate that man." Harry muttered as they picked themselves off the ground.

"Me too." Daphne agreed, taking off her winter cloak.

Their feelings vented, they sat down on the couch together, Daphne cuddling into him with a content sigh as she warmth flow into her again.

"I wonder what Hogwarts will be like." She wondered quietly a few minutes later.

"Big, with lots of towers. Perched on top of a mountain at the edge of a huge lake." Harry said, almost able to see it in his mind even though he had never seen a picture or read a description of it.

"That sounds nice." Daphne said with a smile. "I hope the other teachers are better than Snape, though."

"Like that's hard." He snorted in response, getting a slight giggle out of her.


	3. Apologies

I apologise that this isn't a story update, my life has been rather chaotic and I've been unable to find the time or focus to write. I'm sorry for disappointing those who like the story. Hopefully I'll be able to continue soon! Thank you all for your support.

On an unrelated although positive note, I've been thinking of a story challenge if anyone wants to take it up. The challenge is a good/kind if skilled Harry x psychotic or evil girls. They can be good in cannon, however the story starts after the quidditch world cup, cannon before then. So any girls who aren't psychotic / evil before are going to have a start of darkness. I'm intrigued to see what people come up with! Have fun!

Hugs and kisses

Azrael


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